the elephant seals at san simeon

meredith and i decided to make the trip to see the elephant seals. january is when they give birth, so we thought it would be quite the national geographic experience. it did NOT disappoint! nearly every female seal had a pup next to her, and the volunteer that was there answering questions said that there had been three births so far that morning.

i wish i had gotten a picture of the whole beach because there were hundreds of seals. here is a shot of a male asserting his position as leader of his...harem (?) of lady seals.

a mom with her baby. some of the babies were so new they were wrinkly and slick with birth goo. this is one of the older ones.

this is the biggest male we saw. look at those war wounds on his neck!

here is the baby we saw being born! it happened so quickly we almost missed it and just happened to be looking in the right direction. i believe the seal on the right is the mother. the volunteer said, 'wait for the afterbirth to come out, that's when the seagulls REALLY come.' gross. GROSS!

sullivan was fascinated by the seals. after being in the car for an hour i thought we'd have a hard time corralling him, but he sat, perfectly content, in my arms for a good half hour. my biceps were sore the next day.

meredith got some video of battling males. 'blue planet' people, we've got some video for you...